INTA 714 – Defense Intelligence Fall 2021 Monday 6:15-8:55 PM The Bush School DC Teaching Site Instructor: Phil Gentile. Office Hours: TBD 1620 L St NW, Washington, DC or by appointment [email protected] 571-989-8871 Credit Hours: 3 Course Description: Rising in the post WWII era and honed to effect during the Cold War, Defense Intelligence is the indispensable component of warfighting anchoring our National Defense. Defense Intelligence has evolved and matured to a diverse and multifaceted enterprise responsible for supporting a wide range of activities from national policy decision making, through Combatant Commander joint and combined operations, to provisioning relevant intelligence and capability directly impacting tactical combat operations. The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) spends in excess of $20 billion per year on defense intelligence and has over 100,000 people representing a significant slice of our national intelligence capability. However, at a time when the vast majority of the American population does not serve in the military, the essential role of Defense Intelligence is relatively unknown. This lack of contact and understanding confuses policymakers in the national security community of the complexity and value of Defense Intelligence. Following World War II, and accelerating since 9/11, Defense Intelligence is increasingly tied to military operations worldwide, both on the ground and remotely, while concurrently supporting an array of traditional DoD missions ranging from crisis response to supporting steady-state engagement, to shaping the capabilities of the future joint force. As the character, speed and complexity of conflict evolves in the information age, Defense Intelligence is pressed to keep provide deeper and timely insights on a broader array of questions than ever before. The purpose of the course is to expose students to historical and contemporary Defense Intelligence capabilities as a part of the military decision-making environment. From the National Security Council to tactical commanders, the intelligence community and intelligence cycle is continuously in motion. This course will provide students with the understanding of how multiple capabilities and organizations work together to inform leaders. Students will gain a thorough understanding of the five major intelligence disciplines and be exposed to a variety of historical vignettes for critical analysis on the role of Defense Intelligence in decision making. The course will survey conventional and emerging threat environments and technologies discussing the challenges to Defense Intelligence in meeting the ever-increasing complexity, speed and volatility of the present and future threat landscape. This course goes beyond the theoretical and will provide an in-depth examination of the individual service and agency intelligence capabilities, proficiencies, and unique contributions to the IC. Throughout the course, students will continuously address how the intelligence cycle collects, analyses and informs military related decisions for tactical to strategic scenarios. The course challenges each student to critically examine Defense Intelligence’s relative strengths and weaknesses in context with the present and ask the question of whether it is postured to deliver relevant decision maker support to win in the future warfighting environment. Course Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites for this course. Course Learning Outcomes: Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to: 1) Identify the Roles and Responsibilities of National and Defense Intelligence 2) Describe the fundamentals of Service intelligence capabilities (the “INTs”) 3) Communicate Defense Intelligence’s role in force development, decision making and intelligence support from tactical to strategic missions. 4) Identify and explain Defense Intelligence organizations and their contribution to the defense intelligence enterprise. 5) Analyze Defense Intelligence’s capability and evaluate its ability to meet emerging technology and future threat environments. 6) Communicate complex ideas with clarity and precision in both oral and written forms. Books and Readings: Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, (8th Edition). CQ Press, 2020. Mark Lowenthal and Robert Clark, The 5 disciplines of intelligence collection. CQ Press, 2016. Required readings for each class will be located on TAMU library collections course reserves, and are also available on the internet. Supplemental readings may be added periodically and will also be available via the professor, or on the Internet. Grading: The final grade in this class will be calculated as follows: 1) Class Participation (20%) - A student’s contribution and participation in classroom dialogue is an indicator of preparation, performance and understanding of the material. Reading and understanding all preparatory material provides a basic understanding of classroom discussions and students are encouraged to seek additional material aligned with the learning objectives of the course. Students must participate in all classroom discussions and provide 2 clear, concise and well- informed comments. Participation includes listening carefully and critically to the views expressed by classmates, as well as the expression of personal views. Likewise, students are highly encouraged to ask relevant and thought-provoking questions that improves individual and group dialogue. Participation is evaluated on a qualitative, not quantitative basis. Each student’s class participation during each session will be assessed according to the following rubric: RUBRIC 5 pts 4 pts 3 pts 2 pts 1/0 pts COMPONENTS Timely and Volunteers Volunteers Struggles but Does not participate appropriate comments, comments but lacks participates, and/or only makes comments, most are depth, may or may occasionally offers a negative or thoughtful and appropriate and not lead to other comment when disruptive remarks, reflective, reflect some questions from directly questioned, comments are responds thoughtfulness, students. may simply restate inappropriate or off Quality of respectfully to leads to other questions or points topic Comments other student's questions or previously raised, remarks, remarks from may add nothing provokes student and/or new to the discussion questions and others or provoke no comments from responses or the group question. Clear reference Has done the Has done the Has not read the Unable to refer to to text being reading with reading; lacks entire text and text for evidence or discussed and some thoroughness of cannot sustain any support of remarks Resource/ connects to it to thoroughness, understanding or reference to it in the Document other text or may lack some insight. course of discussion. Reference reference points detail or critical from previous insight readings and discussions. Posture, Listens to others Listens to others Drifts in and out of Disrespectful of demeanor and most of the some of the time, discussion, listening others when they are behavior clearly time, does not does not stay to some remarks speaking; behavior demonstrate stay focused on focused on other's while clearly missing indicates total non- respect and other's comments (too or ignoring others. involvement with attentiveness to comments (too busy formulating group or discussion others busy own) or loses Active formulating continuity of Listening own) or loses discussion. Shows continuity of some consistency in discussion. responding to the Shows comments of consistency in others. responding to the comments of others. 2) Short brief (5%) - Each student will research and provide a 5-minute presentation and a one- page handout of a topic assigned by the professor at the end of the previous class. The selected topic will complement the class topic and typically is a defense intelligence capability, organization or concept. Each student will present two short briefs during the semester for a total of 5% towards their grade; 3 3) Midterm paper (25%) - Students will investigate and analyze a U.S. military operation selected from a provided list, from the perspective of defense intelligence’s role in the operation’s planning, execution and outcome. The paper will analyze and assess defense intelligence’s role at the strategic, operational and tactical levels decision making, and defense intelligence’s role, successes and shortfalls, in operational planning, execution and the operation’s outcome. This paper is due at the beginning of class 8. The paper should be approximately 2,500 words (10 pages) with citations, not including title page, graphics, and bibliography; 4) Threat Presentation (20%). Students will provide a 20 min formal presentation of an assigned threat topic during weeks 12-14. The Student will select one of the threats (NDS 4+1) and the professor will assign (not later than week 8) the specific technology or capability for the presentation. The purpose is to gain a deeper understanding of the designated topic beyond the assigned readings and share that knowledge with the class. As a minimum, the presentation will frame the topic and include questions to be addressed, a discussion of the pertinent material, and a critical analysis of the challenges to defense intelligence. The student will provide a summary handout for the class and will be prepared to answer questions; 5) Final Paper (30%). Due the beginning of class 15. Students will respond to his/her choice on one of three questions (provided during class 1) with a 3,500 word